Today I woke myself up bright and early to take a quilting class. Well, it was before nine!
This class was very different than any other quilting class I have ever taken. I was learning to use a longarm machine
For those of you that don't know, a longarm is the machine of choice for doing the actual quilting on a quilt top. I usually send my quilts out to a longarm quilter but I have always wanted to try and quilt them myself. Now I can!The first quilting we did was following a layout. The layout has a specific name, but I cannot remember it right now. The machine goes really fast. The quilter stands on the back of the machine and does not even look at the quilting. I was learning to follow the pattern with a little red dot of light. It was really bizarre to pay attention to the red light and not to the actual stitching being done.
It was awesome. After I learned to space the rows of quilting, I was able to freestyle a design. I actually taught myself to make a daisy...Three tries was all it took. I was thrilled! Now I need to finish a lap quilt, post haste, so that I do not lose my newly acquired skills. I can't wait!
